“Abortion, she said. She was nineteen years old, she said, no partner, she said, no prospects, she said. She was angry, and hurt, and hostile. Leave and never come back, she said.”
“So that’s what you did?”
“That’s what I did. Felt easier that way, for both of us.” He leaned towards me. “I swear I didn’t know about Katie, Carl, not until the girl was just shy of ten. I was coming back from a meeting in Hereford, supplier up on the Three Elms Trading Estate, took the road through Much Arlock, and there she was, my Debbie, walking up the street as I stopped at the lights. She had a girl with her, in her school uniform. My window was open all the way down, and I heard Katie’s voice. Mum, she said, and I knew, I just fucking knew.”
“Shit,” I said. “That’s a head fuck.”
“Never felt so fucked up in my life,” he said. “Shocked, and angry, and disgusted at myself. And then sad, so fucking sad.”
“What did you do?”
“I looked up Debbie’s new address, went round there when Katie was at school. She looked like she’d seen a fucking ghost, and so did I. She denied it at first, said Katie wasn’t mine, but I demanded to see her birth certificate. I was a blank fucking space, Carl, a nobody, but dates don’t lie. Debbie cried then, cried and begged me to stay away, said they didn’t need me, neither of them, said they’d been coping just fine.”
“Shit.”
“She was a care worker, still is. My bright little Debbie wiping up old people’s shit to support my daughter while I lived the life of fucking Riley a few miles away.”
“What did you do?”
He shook his head. “Acted impulsively. Went straight home and told Olivia, told her I had another daughter and she’d be coming to stay with us. Insisted we tell the kids, insisted we invite Katie into our home. I forced my wishes on Debbie, threatened legal action, DNA testing, all that. I thought it would be easy. I was angry, Carl.”
And I knew the story from here. “I remember.”
“I didn’t tell anyone much about the backstory, I was too ashamed and Olivia was fucking mortified. I kept quiet but insisted that Katie was my daughter now, told Debbie that the past didn’t matter, that what counted was what we did from there.” He groaned. “I thought I could make it all right, thought if I pushed hard enough people would accept it, learn to love it. I met Katie for the very first time as she climbed into my car for her first day at ours. I was such a fucking prick, Carl, handled it all wrong. The girl didn’t get a chance to find her feet, I just wanted her to meet her brothers and sister, wanted her to see what a nice house we had, how much fun she could have. But she hated it, and Verity hated her. The whole thing was a fucking disaster.”
“Must have been hard on the kids, all of them.”
He nodded. “I thought they’d adapt, slowly, learn to get on. I thought we’d be alright.”
“But it wasn’t alright?”
He shook his head. “No, it wasn’t alright. Katie hated me, hated the house, hated the kids. She didn’t want to come there, used to cry to her mum that she wanted to stay at home, but I’d turn up anyway, try and make it work. Bull-headed, Carl, I was bull-headed. When she got to thirteen she didn’t want to know me anymore, and when she got to sixteen she told me she’d had enough of the whole fucking lot of us. Wouldn’t take a penny from me, not for anything, didn’t want to know.”
“You let it go?”
“No,” he said. “Not really. Kept trying, kept pushing. It’s her mother, though, she’s so close to her mother. Wouldn’t even let me speak her name, still won’t now. She said I had no right to speak about her mother after what I’d done to her, no right to even think about her mother.”
“And what about what Debbie did to you?” I said. “Katie knows presumably? That Debbie lied to you?”
He sighed. “I dunno, Carl. I really don’t know what she knows. I’ve never rocked the boat far enough to bring it up with her, communication is tough enough as it is without that can of worms springing open. Katie doesn’t want to know me, no matter how hard I try, and